You gotta hand it to short people. Because usually they can’t reach it themselves, even with the step stool.

I kid, I kid! …Not really though.

My father was six feet tall, and my mother measured five foot three, though she shrunk a little bit with age so it might be more like five foot two now. My brother is about five foot nine.

And me? I tapped out at a mighty four foot eleven inches. Four. Eleven.

So unfair. Doesn’t a person usually land somewhere in between their parents’ heights?

I joke that drinking coffee when I was really little stunted my growth. When I was about three years old, my mother would make herself a cup of coffee, then go do something like switch over the laundry, and when she got back, I had drunk all the coffee. To this day, I still drink coffee routinely and passionately; it is arguably a staple component of my execrice functioning nowadays. Still, while it’s a fun story to tell, I’m not really sure that’s why I’m so short.

I often have fun saying things like I’m fun sized, or, when my husband has to go out of town for work, I remind him that I’m travel sized for his convenience. I love joking when I get up on step stools or chairs that the air quality is different up there. Being short is a frequently challenging and frustrating experience, but, I do my best, and tall people don’t usually mind helping me out if I don’t get too stubborn to ask for help.

The humor is all an attempt to deflect from what I really wonder about my height.

Am I short because of all the trauma I endured? Did I literally shrink to fit for my entire life, not just figuratively? Can psychological maltreatment stunt a person’s growth like physical abuse can? I’ll never know. But that’s what’s on today’s episode of “things that make ya go hmmm…”

If anyone has any thoughts on that, I’ll be in my classroom, gazing longingly at the bare tops of my bulletin boards, considering how best to get them finished without risking life and limb.